Check out the 25th percentile on their website and then take a guess...

Ok. Now that is interesting. I was wondering what was up with those numbers. To be candid, and quite frankly this may make me sound like a jerk, I was really quite "turned off" by the 25th % figures at UMN.

I just couldn't fathom why there was such a discrepancy. If you are telling me that they have acknowledged this as a mistake, then this makes me a bit more interested in attending. I really love UMN, so I'm still planning a visit!

Also, got a call today from an Alum. He just wanted to chat, which was cool.

I suppose they acknowledged the mistake by asking the former DOA to take a hike...and by doing things quite differently this cycle.

Slimpee wrote:i'm going to wait and see if any of the T20 has a similar problem to MN faced last year and if so, i'm throwing in a late-cycle app (i'm looking at you, Cornell)

One school last year was throwing around full rides to people who never even applied. It was T30 school from the south, I forget which one. Some of the people who put down deposits with small tuition were pissed when people with worse numbers were getting full rides.

Slimpee wrote:i'm going to wait and see if any of the T20 has a similar problem to what MN faced last year and if so, i'm throwing in a late-cycle app (i'm looking at you, Cornell)

I would say good idea, but I doubt they'll see the results of their mistake until people start depositing in April or so. But I suppose if you turn it in RIGHT before the deadline, they might not get to it until then.

Slimpee wrote:i'm going to wait and see if any of the T20 has a similar problem to MN faced last year and if so, i'm throwing in a late-cycle app (i'm looking at you, Cornell)

One school last year was throwing around full rides to people who never even applied. It was T30 school from the south, I forget which one. Some of the people who put down deposits with small tuition were pissed when people with worse numbers were getting full rides.

robin600 wrote:A lot of schools are splitter happy this year. So for those of us who try really hard and succeed in both areas get fucked...gotta love life.

robin, I understand your frustration, but statements like this are not fair. Sure, I'm a splitter, but that doesn't mean I didn't try hard in school. I went through a lot the first few years, and my gpa suffered for it, but I worked my ass off the last few years while also working full time. My low gpa does not mean I am not a hard worker or a good student.

NB, that's specifically why i said try really hard and succeed. I'm sure you tried really hard (I did too, eight surgeries actually) but you didn't get the higher GPA and that's fine, shit happens. I'm just saying that if you have a good gpa you should be rewarded. If that came out wrong I apologize. All I meant was if you're balanced you're fucked.

TBH, you're not really "balanced" for UMN. A WL shouldn't be such a shock, imho.

I meant balanced in general, not balanced for UMN. A WL isn't a shock, I'm just sick of waitlists and would like a nice accept please. of course, imho.

Cornell is like the skinny dude hanging around his muscular law school pals. So this year Cornell looks himself in the mirror and says he's going to get his biceps really pumped up. GPA is his left arm, LSAT is his right arm. He looks himself in the mirror, reaches for the 50 lb. weights and tries to curl them as hard as he can. Failing miserably, Cornell drops the weights, stumbles to his bed and falls back on it, and just lays there with a mild sweat formed on his brow. Heart beating a little faster than usual and feeling sorry for himself, he picks up the phone and dials his girlfriend (who's maybe a 7.5) to have her over for a cuddle session. She comes over but she won't fuck him. She's wearing a Minnesota shirt.

Slimpee wrote:i'm going to wait and see if any of the T20 has a similar problem to MN faced last year and if so, i'm throwing in a late-cycle app (i'm looking at you, Cornell)

One school last year was throwing around full rides to people who never even applied. It was T30 school from the south, I forget which one. Some of the people who put down deposits with small tuition were pissed when people with worse numbers were getting full rides.

Slimpee wrote:i'm going to wait and see if any of the T20 has a similar problem to MN faced last year and if so, i'm throwing in a late-cycle app (i'm looking at you, Cornell)

One school last year was throwing around full rides to people who never even applied. It was T30 school from the south, I forget which one. Some of the people who put down deposits with small tuition were pissed when people with worse numbers were getting full rides.

Hopefullawstudent wrote:Cornell is like the skinny dude hanging around his muscular law school pals. So this year Cornell looks himself in the mirror and says he's going to get his biceps really pumped up. GPA is his left arm, LSAT is his right arm. He looks himself in the mirror, reaches for the 50 lb. weights and tries to curl them as hard as he can. Failing miserably, Cornell drops the weights, stumbles to his bed and falls back on it, and just lays there with a mild sweat formed on his brow. Heart beating a little faster than usual and feeling sorry for himself, he picks up the phone and dials his girlfriend (who's maybe a 7.5) to have her over for a cuddle session. She comes over but she won't fuck him. She's wearing a Minnesota shirt.

Hopefullawstudent wrote:Cornell is like the skinny dude hanging around his muscular law school pals. So this year Cornell looks himself in the mirror and says he's going to get his biceps really pumped up. GPA is his left arm, LSAT is his right arm. He looks himself in the mirror, reaches for the 50 lb. weights and tries to curl them as hard as he can. Failing miserably, Cornell drops the weights, stumbles to his bed and falls back on it, and just lays there with a mild sweat formed on his brow. Heart beating a little faster than usual and feeling sorry for himself, he picks up the phone and dials his girlfriend (who's maybe a 7.5) to have her over for a cuddle session. She comes over but she won't fuck him. She's wearing a Minnesota shirt.

The end.

-HL

Trying to raise medians without using splitters is a bad idea.

Splitters are the law school application version of crack. Once you get on them, you can't give them up, like Minnesota showed. Cornell could boost their median 2 LSAT points just by taking all the 169-170 splitters that WUSTL, UIUC and Minn take in.

Hopefullawstudent wrote:Cornell is like the skinny dude hanging around his muscular law school pals. So this year Cornell looks himself in the mirror and says he's going to get his biceps really pumped up. GPA is his left arm, LSAT is his right arm. He looks himself in the mirror, reaches for the 50 lb. weights and tries to curl them as hard as he can. Failing miserably, Cornell drops the weights, stumbles to his bed and falls back on it, and just lays there with a mild sweat formed on his brow. Heart beating a little faster than usual and feeling sorry for himself, he picks up the phone and dials his girlfriend (who's maybe a 7.5) to have her over for a cuddle session. She comes over but she won't fuck him. She's wearing a Minnesota shirt.

The end.

-HL

Trying to raise medians without using splitters is a bad idea.

Splitters are the law school application version of crack. Once you get on them, you can't give them up, like Minnesota showed. Cornell could boost their median 2 LSAT points just by taking all the 169-170 splitters that WUSTL, UIUC and Minn take in.

My point exactly, it's almost better to be a splitter than balanced sometimes.

Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

If you look at Cornell's GPA range, it is already pretty low 3.24-3.84, while LSAT 166-168 is similar to other school around their ranking (the 75th is a bit higher in others). So if anything, I my guess would be that if they are trying to put their numbers up, they are going to aim for more reverse splitters (high GPA, low LSAT). If they do that enough and bring their 25th percentile down to lets say Berkeley's 164, they might be able to get enough high 3.9+ low 160s students to raise their status.

faceman9000 wrote:Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

True true, I just sometimes think some schools take a 162/4.0 and 170/3.0 to balance each other when they could just take two 166/3.5s who most likely will attend anyways. I think UMN is kind of doing that this year. Maybe it's because they're a state school, are they one of the schools that has a %of in state students they need to meet?

faceman9000 wrote:Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

My impression is that justice IS served, though maybe not in the same sense as you are imagining it, and, that said justice takes a long time to arrive.

Georgetown is a splitter-whore. An admissions person is on the record as having said that if you don't have at least one number at the median, you're a likely out. Michigan, despite all of the smoke they blow, is the second biggest splitter-whore I know of. Two cycles ago they took my friend with a 170 LSAT and a 3.2 from Michigan UG! A 3.2 at Michigan!! "He DID speak Farsi though," said Dean Zearfoss, I'm sure.

Justice comes into the picture when you realize that Michigan has gone nowhere but down over the years (and probably will continue to slide), and Georgetown is about to be toppled by UT or UCLA. I'm really looking forward to seeing which one does it. (I think it will be UCLA). By admitting "numbers" and not people, these schools are really not turning out the A+ grade lawyers they should be. The legal community is catching on, and I think many of their own even know it.

Last edited by Hopefullawstudent on Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

faceman9000 wrote:Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

True true, I just sometimes think some schools take a 162/4.0 and 170/3.0 to balance each other when they could just take two 166/3.5s who most likely will attend anyways. I think UMN is kind of doing that this year. Maybe it's because they're a state school, are they one of the schools that has a %of in state students they need to meet?

This is how UVA and Duke keep their ranks. Look at their admissions graphs on LSN, they make a right angle.

faceman9000 wrote:Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

My impression is that justice IS served, though maybe not in the same sense as you are imagining it, and, that said justice takes a long time to arrive.

Georgetown is a splitter-whore. An admissions person is on the record as having said that if you don't have at least one number at the median, you're a likely out. Michigan, despite all of the smoke they blow, is the second biggest splitter-whore I know of. Two cycles ago they took my friend with a 170 LSAT and a 3.2 from Michigan UG! A 3.2 at Michigan!! "He DID speak Farsi though," said Dean Zearfoss, I'm sure.

Justice comes into the picture when you realize that Michigan has gone nowhere but down over the years (and probably will continue to slide), and Georgetown is about to be toppled by UT or UCLA. I'm really looking forward to seeing which one does it. (I think it will be UCLA). By admitting "numbers" and not people, these schools are really not turning out the A+ grade lawyers they should be. The legal community is catching on, and I think many of their own even know it.

Except WUSTL, IUB, UIUC, UVA, NYU, and NU all do the same thing and none of them are dropping. And for that matter Michigan isn't really dropping either.

faceman9000 wrote:Because it is about medians and not averages, it is always better to be a splitter with one # above the median than to be "balanced" with both #s below. Whether or not justice is served by this system is certainly up for debate.

My impression is that justice IS served, though maybe not in the same sense as you are imagining it, and, that said justice takes a long time to arrive.

Georgetown is a splitter-whore. An admissions person is on the record as having said that if you don't have at least one number at the median, you're a likely out. Michigan, despite all of the smoke they blow, is the second biggest splitter-whore I know of. Two cycles ago they took my friend with a 170 LSAT and a 3.2 from Michigan UG! A 3.2 at Michigan!! "He DID speak Farsi though," said Dean Zearfoss, I'm sure.

Justice comes into the picture when you realize that Michigan has gone nowhere but down over the years (and probably will continue to slide), and Georgetown is about to be toppled by UT or UCLA. I'm really looking forward to seeing which one does it. (I think it will be UCLA). By admitting "numbers" and not people, these schools are really not turning out the A+ grade lawyers they should be. The legal community is catching on, and I think many of their own even know it.

Except WUSTL, IUB, UIUC, UVA, NYU, and NU all do the same thing and none of them are dropping. And for that matter Michigan isn't really dropping either.

..and if you acutally look at Michigan's LSN graph, they don't really do it; at least not to the extent of schools like WUSTL or UVA.

Also, I'm in at Minnesota, but for some reason haven't posted here yet.